Impressive start for men’s hoops

Pretty solid opener to the 2011-12 season by the men’s basketball team, beating UTEP 73-64 on the road Friday to add another quality non-conference pelt to the collection i’ts amassed over the past few years (Iowa, Houston, Rice, etc.)

To put Vouyoukas’ performance in perspective, not only did he nearly double his previous career-high of seven points, he had as many points against UTEP as minutes played over his final 19 games of last season. Suffice to say, if Vouyoukas can consistently give the Roadrunners that kind of performance — a ginormous “if” — that will go a long way toward shoring up their porous interior.

“Alex was very good last night,” head coach Brooks Thompson said. “He did a great job. He’s a good player and the more confidence and the more playing time he gets, the better he’ll be.”

An asterisk, however: even with a solid game from their only true big, the Roadrunners were still outrebounded by 10, an area that UTSA coaches have repeatedly said will be their biggest emphasis in the absence of injured wide body Larry Wilkins.

The Roadrunners were also impressive on defense, forcing UTEP into 21 turnovers, 15 of which resulted from steals. It was a nice early return on the new half-court trap they’ve implemented this season to minimize their lack of size and maximize their length/quickness. It comes on the heels of having forced 25 turnovers in last week’s exhibition victory over Southeastern Oklahoma State.

“We’re still new to it,” Thompson said. “I won’t say it’s our whole scheme…but we did some good things out of it. We got outrebounded by 10 but we were able to offset that with turnovers, so make whatever you want out of that. The biggest thing is we want to be aggressive and be as effective as we can be on the defensive end.”

Still extremely early, but it’s an indication of Thompson’s flexibility, tweaking UTSA’s tactics to best fit his personnel, something a lot of coaches are loath to do. It’s certainly a far cry from last year, when the Roadrunners preferred to pack the paint in a 2-3 zone and hope their opponents missed.

Another thing Thompson was liked was the team’s competitiveness and composure, both of which he linked to last year’s stretch run, in which the Roadrunners extended their season with six straight must-wins, including the first NCAA tournament victory in school history. Former UTSA star Devin Gibson had wondered if this year’s team had such fortitude.

For one game, we have our answer. (Even though it should be noted that the Miners played six freshmen, two sophomores and no seniors last night.)